Edmonton Regional Women's Committee: Meeting Minutes - Sept 28, 2017

Public Service Alliance of Canada

Regional Women’s Committee

General Meeting

September 28th, 2017         PSAC Edmonton RO

In attendance: 

Patty Jesome, Chair                       

Dragana Ristivojevich, Vice Chair

Charmaine Nelson, Treasurer

Kim Cardinal, Secretary

Deborah Basaraba, Member

Deb Kosteniuk, Member

PSAC Staff Via Conference call: 

Nina Babcook, A/Regional PSAC Rep

1.Welcome to all / Call to Order – Patty Jessome called the meeting to order @ 5:34 pm.

2.Harassment statement read by Deb Kosteniuuk

3.This Agenda - Adoption: Agenda approved by consensus.

4.Adoption of Aug 2nd Meeting Minutes: Minutes were reviewed – motion to accept by Charmaine and 2nd by Dragana

5.Last meeting minutes Sept 6th  - Adoption:  Minutes were reviewed – motion to accept by Charmaine and 2nd by Dragana 

6.Finance Review Presented by Charmaine:

7.Follow up on previous business:

• Seminar Discussion:

Childcare seminar was on September 16, 2017. There were 15 attendees. Nina, Freada and Patty had spent time prior to the event calling locals in order to gain attendees; this was very successful as we did not have to cancel the seminar.

Speakers at the event were wonderful and educational. Kim Cardinal mentioned it would have been nice to have a pamphlet or something that we could have shared with the people on the street when we did the “march” down Jasper Avenue.  Morna Ballentyne had brought some post cards regarding childcare, we could contact her to get some more.

Deb K advised the committee that there is funding for Universal Child Care until 2018. If you do an activity – request to use some of this fund. Suggestion to work together with Prairie Regional to do something re: “Quality Affordable Child Care” – This will be put on the RWC Agenda as a standing agenda item to discuss doing an event/action early in the new year.

• Garden: Last harvest. We need volunteers:

Harvest was completed by Kim, Bruce (Kim’s spouse) and Patty on Monday. Patty dropped off the produce to SAGE on Tuesday.  Kim does have more potatoes at the farm.

Patty will call SAGE to see if they are interested in the potatoes as well ask them for a recap of this year and the produce they received from the committee.

8.New business:

8.1 Solidarity Brunch: Northern Alberta Area Council is hosting the 2nd Solidarity Brunch. All local presidents, regional vice presidents, regional committee executive members are invited to the 2.5 hour breakfast on Saturday, October 14th, 2017 at the Prince of Wales Armories. Please follow this link and register by October 5th, 2017. If you, as a local president, cannot attend please send a representative from your local. http://prairies.psac.com/nothern-alberta-course-registration .

8.2 Meeting Minutes: To save time and back and forth e-mails. Suggested to a “on-the-spot meeting-minutes adoptions”. If there is a change to the minutes, committee can decide the change, read the change out loud at the meeting and have everyone adopt/approve the change, “on-the-spot”, therefore minutes will be adopted immediately. Committee agreed with this new way of adopting previous minutes that require administrative changes.

8.3 Final Minutes: Nina gets only the last finalized minutes for posting, which comes from the secretary after all changes have been made.

8.4 Campaign – Food for Women. Suggestion to have volunteers come to the PSAC office and call locals for donation.  Collected so far is $1000. Patty and Kim will try to arrange to make calls and Deb. B is available after 4:30 pm.  As there is no deadline on the poster, committee would like to get the gift cards by mid November 2017. This will be a standing item on the Agenda for an update.

8.5 November 11th – Remembrance Wreath and presenting at the ButterDome – Leads will be Deb Basaraba and Charmaine Nelson – standing item on the Agenda for an update.

8.6 Dec 6th – Join our affiliates for National Day of Remembrance and action on violence against women. Possible affiliates; UNIFOR, UFCW (United Food and Commercial workers), Universities, NAIT. Deb Basdaraba to contact AFL to see if we can collobobrate with them. Deb. B. announced that the AFL has a brunch on Dec 3, 2017 @ 10:00 AM - $95/person. RWC members should participate? ACTION: Business line re: Dec 6th – planning to Marianne for some tickets could be funded. Patty will do a business case for this.

8.7New Campaign – What’s your Story (2018): FB/Website. Develop a FB Page or a Website for a way to start personal conversations around child care; this can be where people can tell their stories. Who could join? Kim C suggested GC Connect/GCPedia as another means to promote. Discussions re: GC Connect is that the employer controls this and members might not be comfortable using this. With a website RWC would be in control of the “web design”. Committee will continue to discuss further this idea. Standing item on the Agenda.  ACTION: Kim C will also look further in the GC Connect on how it works and bring to next meeting.

9.Roundtable

Patty:  Gave committee a copy of her report on her attendance at the “Prairie School of Union Women”.

Deb B: Concerns that “Regrets” are not being added to the minutes. Nina and Kim will ensure that if regrets are sent in that they are most definitely added to the minutes. Committee agreed that this is important to reflect on the minutes.

10.Next meeting date: October 19, 2017

11.Adjournment:  Meeting adjourned at 7:00 pm

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